1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a suspension for a head slider, incorporated within a magnetic recording medium drive such as a hard disk drive (HDD), for example.
2. Description of the Prior Art
As disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2001-155458, a head suspension assembly includes a base plate and a load beam extending forward from the base plate. A flexure is received on the front surface of the load beam. The flexure includes a fixation plate fixed to the load beam and a support plate receiving a head slider on its front surface. A so-called gimbal spring is employed to connect the support plate to the fixation plate. The back surface of the support plate is received at a protrusion formed on the front surface of the load beam. Laser welding is employed to fix the fixation plate to the load beam, for example. The head suspension assembly is attached to the tip end of an actuator arm. The swinging movement of the actuator arm allows the head slider to be opposed to the surface of a magnetic recording disk.
The load beam is made of a metal material such as aluminum in the head suspension assembly of the type. This leads to reduction in the weight of the load beam in comparison with a load beam made of stainless steel. The natural frequency of the head suspension assembly is thus raised. However, when the magnetic recording disk is driven to rotate faster, the current of airflow generated along the surface of the magnetic recording disk further increases. Such airflow induces vibration of the head suspension assembly. Moreover, the increase in the current of the airflow causes the frequency of the vibration to approach the natural frequency of the head suspension assembly. This results in resonance induced in the head suspension assembly. The head slider is prevented from being positioned right above a target recording track on the magnetic recording disk. The electromagnetic transducer mounted on the head slider tends to fail in write and read operations.